Death may catch up with you at any time. Who knows, perhaps this is the moment. Or, it may be much closer than you have ever expected.

These lines may be the last opportunity, the last reminder, the last warning before death comes upon you. As you proceed with these lines, you can never know that you will still be alive in the next hour. Even if it proves to be so, nothing can guarantee you another hour. Let alone an hour, not even after a single moment, is it certain that you will be still living. There is no guarantee that you will ever finish reading this book. Death will, most likely, come upon you at a time when, only a moment before, you never thought about dying.

You will most certainly die, as will all your loved ones. Before you or after you, they will certainly die. A hundred years from now, there will not be a single soul you are familiar with in this world.

Endless aims pertaining to life occupy man's minds; to finish high school, to enter university, to graduate, to have a respectable occupation, to marry, to bring up children, to lead a peaceful life…these are among the broadest and most ordinary plans of man. These aside, there are thousands of others devised to address one's personal circumstances.

Death is one of the few things in life certain to occur. This is a one hundred per cent certainty.

After years of hard work, a student succeeds in entering the university, yet dies on the way to class. Someone who has recently been hired for a job loses his life on his first morning commute to his work. A traffic accident ends the lives of a newly married couple on their wedding day. A successful businessman prefers to fly to save time, not knowing that that very flight will put a horrible end to his life.

At such a stage, plans no longer avail. Leaving behind plans doomed to remain unfinished for all eternity, they head for a point of no return-and yet it is a destination they never planned for.

Ironically, for years, they spent too much time detailing plans which would never be put into operation, yet never gave a thought to the one certain thing that would happen.

How then should a man of wisdom and conscience establish his priorities? Does he have to make his plans for the one thing certain to happen or for something unlikely to happen? The majority, it is evident, give priority to goals which they can never be certain of accomplishing. No matter which phase of life they are passing through, they resolutely plan for a better and more fulfilling future.

This tendency would be quite rational, if man was immortalYet the fact remains that all plans are doomed to that absolute end, called death. Thus it is irrational to disregard death, which is certain to occur, and devote all one's attention to all those things which may or may not materialize.

This being the case, they can never become acquainted with their real life which is due to start with death. They simply do not prepare themselves for it. Once they are resurrected, they head nowhere but hell, a place specially designed for them.

The intention in writing this book is to make man ponder over an issue which he avoids thinking about and warn him against an imminent and ineluctable event…

Avoiding thinking about it cannot, by any means, provide a solution.

A CRUEL IDEOLOGY IN THE ECONOMY: CAPITALISM AND FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

The term capitalism means the sovereignty of capital, a free and unrestricted economic system totally based on profit and where society is in competition within these criteria. There are three important elements in capitalism: individualism, competition, and profit-making.

Individualism is important because people see themselves not as a part of society, but as "individuals" standing alone on their own two feet. "Capitalist society" is an arena where individuals compete with one another under very harsh and ruthless conditions just like that described by Darwin, where only the strong survive, where the weak and powerless are crushed and eliminated.

According to the logic capitalism is based on, every individual–and this can be a person, a company, or a nation–must only fight for its own development and advantage. In this war, the best producers survive, the weak and incompetent are eliminated and vanish. What is seen as worthy of attention is not human beings, but economic development, and goods. For which reason the capitalist mentality feels no ethical responsibility or conscience for the person whom it crushes underfoot and climbs on top of and who has to live in great difficulty. This is Darwinism put into total practice in society in an economic way.

By proposing that it was necessary to encourage competition in all areas of society, and announcing that it was necessary to provide no opportunities or support for the weak in any field, the foremost theoreticians of Social Darwinism prepared a "philosophical" and "scientific" support for capitalism.

In the view of Herbert Spencer, the main theorist of Social Darwinism, who introduced the principles of Darwinism to the life of society, if someone is poor then that is his mistake; nobody must help this person to rise. If someone is rich, even if he has acquired his wealth by immoral means, that is his competence. For this reason, the rich man survives, while the poor man disappears.

Social Darwinists used Darwin's theory of evolution as a "scientific" comment on capitalist societies. As a result of this, human beings began to lose such concepts, which religion had brought with it, as mutual assistance, philanthropy, and co-operation, and instead of these virtues to give pride of place to selfishness, cunning, and opportunism.

In his article Darwin's Three Mistakes, the evolutionary scientist Kenneth J. Hsü, reveals the Darwinist thoughts of America's foremost capitalists:

Darwinism was also used in a defense of competitive individualism and its economic corollary of laissez-faire capitalism in England and in America. Andrew Carnegie wrote that the "law of competition, be it benign or not, is here; we cannot evade it." Rockefeller went a step further when he claimed that "the growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest; it is merely the working out of a law of nature." (1)

As has been seen from what has been explained so far, capitalism has dragged human beings to worship only money and the power that comes from money. This capitalist morality holds sway in almost all societies in our day. For this reason the poor, the helpless, and the crippled are denied charity, and are not looked out for or protected.

Today the reason for countries such as Ethiopia having drought affected areas and living in starvation is the dominance of this capitalist morality. While aid and support from many countries could save these hungry people, they are abandoned to starvation and poverty.

Another feature of capitalist society is the way it gives room to inequality within itself. In societies of this kind the divide between rich and poor grows ever wider, as the poor grow poorer, the wealth of the rich grows greater.

Throughout history there have always been societies where the poor and weak were trodden down, where only material things were important, and where selfishness, self-interest, and cheating were seen as the only way to become rich. But from the second half of the 19th century people with such views entered a very different period. For the last 150 years people and societies which possess this ruthless make-up have begun not to be condemned or criticized like the others. Behavior of this sort began at last to be accepted as a law of nature.

Robert E. D. Clark explains the situation this way:

Evolution, in short, gave the doer of evil a respite from his conscience. The most unscrupulous behaviour towards a competitor could not be rationalized; evil could be called good.(2)

As we have seen, lack of religion and the Darwinism which inspired it lay behind all the people, systems, and ideologies which have brought worry, difficulty, pain, and hopelessness to the world, particularly in the last 150 years. Those who thought that they could protect their own interests saw Darwinism as a savior for themselves.

They were not aware of it, but these people who thought they were preparing a great trap for all of mankind, actually prepared it for themselves. Because no matter how much they struggle to survive, there is actually one Judge, one Lord, and one Master, whether of themselves, of the whole world, of everything they try to possess. Allah is the one Judge and Power. The wealth, strength, and power which a human being thinks he gains by himself are actually given to him by Allah to try him. No matter how much he may believe that he is in an arena of struggle, in actual fact every human being is living a test set by Allah for himself. Allah reveals in a holy verse that he tries human beings by means of the opportunities he gives them:

We made everything on the earth adornment for it so that We could test them to see whose actions are the best. (Surat al-Kahf: 7)

Those who think that they have won what they possess as the result of a "fight for survival" will feel a heart-rending pain for which there is no compensation, and great sorrow when they come face to face with reality in the hereafter and see what an empty idea they followed:

The Companions of the Garden will call out to the Companions of the Fire, 'We have found that what our Lord promised us is true. Have you found that what your Lord promised you is true?' They will say, 'Yes, we have!' Between them a herald will proclaim: 'May the curse of Allah be on the wrongdoers those who bar access to the Way of Allah, desiring to make it crooked, and reject the hereafter.' .... The Companions of the Ramparts will call out to men they recognize by their mark, saying, 'What you amassed was of no use to you, nor was your arrogance. (Surat al-A'raf: 44-5, 48)

As for those who have not been influenced by Darwinist-capitalist thinking and who have not forgotten the reason for their being in the world and the existence of Allah, they see other human beings as living things created by Allah. As Allah has ordered them, they always treat other human beings pleasantly, feel affection and compassion, and do everything that they possibly can to take away their difficulties and worries.

They always speak the pleasantest words, look after the orphaned, help the sick and crippled, and protect and watch after them. People like this avoid sin and keep their duties to Allah as it is revealed in the Qur'an and are the most superior in Allah's sight: they pay no attention to wealth, race, color, class, ideology, or philosophy. (For further information on the subject, see “Disasters Darwinism Brought to Humanity” by Harun Yahya)

WHAT SCIENTIFIC FORGERY IS THE MYTH THAT "HUMAN EMBRYOS HAVE GILLS" BASED ON?

THE thesis that living things go through various stages in their mothers' wombs that can be seen as evidence for evolution has a special position amongst the unfounded claims of the theory of evolution. That is because the thesis, known as "recapitulation" in evolutionist literature, is more than a scientific deception: It is a scientific forgery.

Haeckel's recapitulation superstition

Ernst Haeckel, one of the foremost charlatans in the history of science.

The term "recapitulation" is a condensation of the dictum "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," put forward by the evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel at the end of the nineteenth century. This theory of Haeckel's postulates that living embryos re-experience the evolutionary process that their pseudo-ancestors underwent. He theorised that during its development in its mother's womb, the human embryo first displays the characteristics of a fish, then those of a reptile, and finally those of a human. The claim that the embryo possesses "gills" while it develops stems from this thesis.

However, this is utter superstition. Scientific developments in the years since recapitulation was first broached have enabled studies to be made of just how valid it is. These studies have shown that the recapitulation doctrine has no other basis than evolutionists' imaginations and deliberate distortions.

It is now known that the "gills" that supposedly appear in the early stages of the human embryo are in fact the initial phases of the middle-ear canal, parathyroid, and thymus. That part of the embryo that was likened to the "egg yolk pouch" turns out to be a pouch that produces blood for the infant. The part that was identified as a "tail" by Haeckel and his followers is in fact the backbone, which resembles a tail only because it takes shape before the legs do.

These are universally acknowledged facts in the scientific world, and are accepted even by evolutionists themselves. George Gaylord Simpson, one of the founders of neo-Darwinism, writes:

Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle involved. It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.1

The following was written in an article in New Scientist dated October 16, 1999:

[Haeckel] called this the biogenetic law, and the idea became popularly known as recapitulation. In fact Haeckel's strict law was soon shown to be incorrect. For instance, the early human embryo never has functioning gills like a fish, and never passes through stages that look like an adult reptile or monkey. 2

In an article published in American Scientist, we read:

Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail. It was finally exorcised from biology textbooks in the fifties. As a topic of serious theoretical inquiry it was extinct in the twenties… 3

As we have seen, developments since it was first put forward have shown that recapitulation has no scientific basis at all. However, those same advances would show that it was not just a scientific deception, but that it stemmed from a complete "forgery."

Haeckel's forged drawings

Ernst Haeckel, who first put the recapitulation thesis forward, published a number of drawings to back up his theory. Haeckel produced falsified drawings to make fish and human embryos resemble each other! When he was caught out, the only defense he offered was that other evolutionists had committed similar offences:

In its April 8, 2001, edition, The New York Times devoted wide space to the theory of intelligent design and the ideas of scientists and philosophers who support the theory, such as Michael Behe and William Dembski. In general, it said that the theory of intelligent design possessed such a scientific respectability and validity that it would rock Darwinism to its foundations. The paper also compared Haeckel's forged drawings with true pictures of embryos taken under the microscope.

After this compromising confession of "forgery" I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoner's dock hundreds of fellow-culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in the best biological textbooks, treatises and journals would incur in the same degree the charge of "forgery," for all of them are inexact, and are more or less doctored, schematised and constructed. 4

In the September 5, 1997, edition of the well-known scientific journal Science, an article was published revealing that Haeckel's embryo drawings were the product of a deception. The article, called "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," had this to say:

The impression they [Haeckel's drawings] give, that the embryos are exactly alike, is wrong, says Michael Richardson, an embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London… So he and his colleagues did their own comparative study, reexamining and photographing embryos roughly matched by species and age with those Haeckel drew. Lo and behold, the embryos "often looked surprisingly different," Richardson reports in the August issue of Anatomy and Embryology.5

Science, September 5, 1997

Later in this same article, the following information was revealed:

Not only did Haeckel add or omit features, Richardson and his colleagues report, but he also fudged the scale to exaggerate similarities among species, even when there were 10-fold differences in size. Haeckel further blurred differences by neglecting to name the species in most cases, as if one representative was accurate for an entire group of animals. In reality, Richardson and his colleagues note, even closely related embryos such as those of fish vary quite a bit in their appearance and developmental pathway. "It [Haeckel's drawings] looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology," Richardson concludes.6

It is noteworthy that, although Haeckel's falsification came out in 1901, the subject was still portrayed in many evolutionist publications for nearly a century as if it were a proven scientific law. Those who held evolutionist beliefs inadvertently sent out a most important message by putting their ideology before science: Evolution is not science, it is a dogma that they are trying to keep alive in the face of the scientific facts.

Harun Yahya's book A Call for Unity, published in Turkish in 2003 and in English in 2004, constituted a major call to the members of the Divine faiths. This call was issued to the whole world at the beginning of 2004 on the web site www.unionoffaiths.com. Advertising presentations of the book that appeared in Newsweek, one of the world's best-known news magazines, in June-July 2004, made it possible for this call for peace and tolerance to be heard by people all over the world. The impacts of that call soon began emerging. In an address to the General Council of the United Nations on 21 October 2004, Spanish Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero emphasized the importance of an "alliance of civilizations" and called for moves to be made to bring that about. Following initiatives by Spain and Turkey in 2005, the Alliance of Civilizations project commenced under the UN umbrella. The advertisement for Harun Yahya's book A Call for Unity, a vehicle whereby the idea of an "alliance of civilizations" entered the global agenda:

Newsweek, 5 July 2004

Under the banner "A Call to All our Jewish, Christian and Muslim Brothers and Sisters: Let Us All Abide by God's Commandment to Love One Another, in a Spirit of Brotherhood and Genuine Friendship," the advertisement emphasized the shared values of the three Abrahamic faiths dealt with in Harun Yahya's book. Other books by Harun Yahya, Islam Denounces Terrorism, Only Love Can Defeat Terrorism and Terrorism: The Ritual of the Devil, which describe the dangers to world peace and how these can be eradicated, were also introduced.

Interest in Islam among Young People / Daily Yeni Asya / 23.06.2005

This report concerning the turning to religion by Danish youth in particular described how there has been a huge increase in the numbers of people converting to Islam. The article explained how people reading about and studying true Islamic moral values in the wake of the barbaric terror attacks of September 11 have turned to Islam and how Muslims themselves have become much more

GUITAR FISH

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

Paleontology has provided numerous proofs that creatures did not evolve but were created by God. One of these proofs is this 95-million-year-old fossilized guitar fish. These fish live in tropical and subtropical waters and have not changed in about 100 million years. Darwinists can give no scientific explanation for a fossil like this, which shows that it did not undergo any process of evolution. Today's guitar fish are no different from those that lived approximately 100 million years ago—which once again underlines the fact of God's Creation

AL-HAYY, (The Living)

He is the Living —there is no deity but Him—so call upon Him, making your religion sincerely His. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. (Surah Ghafir, 65)

Being weak, what we can actually do is very limited. After we are born, we spend 5-10 years developing our intelligence through education and need constant care. Later on, we spend a great deal of time meeting our bodily needs (e.g., sleeping, and working to acquire food, clothing, and a place to live) and keeping ourselves clean and fresh.

Almost one-quarter of our life is spent in sleep. No matter how much we resist the need to sleep and use that time to engage in other activities, we cannot endure sleep deprivation for more than a few days. Indeed, such a lack of sleep affects our nervous systems by leaving us drowsy and unable to concentrate, and leads to poor memory and physical performance. If sleep deprivation continues, mood swings may develop.

All creatures have a fragile nature. Allah, the Creator of all beings, is al-Hayy (The Living). He controls everything at every moment, knows everything, and has power over all things. He is not subject to drowsiness or sleep, and is exalted above all forms of weakness. He gives various weaknesses to His servants, and commands them to recognize these weaknesses, serve Him, and ask Him for everything. Given these inherent weaknesses, we turn to our Lord, aware that we cannot live for another second unless He wills it. Several verses inform us about this attribute, as follows:

Allah, there is no deity but Him, the Living, the Self-Sustaining. (Surah Al ‘Imran,2)

Put your trust in the Living, Who does not die, and glorify Him with praise. He is well aware of the wrong actions of His servants. (Surat al-Furqan, 58)

Faces will be humbled to the Living, the All-Sustaining, and anyone weighed down with wrongdoing will have failed. (Surah Ta Ha, 111)

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